


Tactus Ex Angor

by whereismygarden



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Lucian Alliance, M/M, fic of a fic, triptych verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-03 23:50:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1760003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whereismygarden/pseuds/whereismygarden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some people only want touch in fear and under pressure. Some people don't want it at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cleanwhiteroom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleanwhiteroom/gifts).



> This fic is an adventure in the wonderful cleanwhiteroom's story, Ad Noctum. I'm crap at getting AO3 to take links, but Ad Noctum is currently unfinished and living on ff dot net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7911041/1/Ad-Noctum
> 
> Cleanwhiteroom has graciously given me permission to remix/play in the wonderful tragicomedy that is Ad Noctum. If you haven't read it, do so, but basically, Rush, Telford, and Volker are all working for the Lucian Alliance, with undefined loyalties.

                Volker’s not sure his lungs and brain can take much more of this: the carbon-filter masks Rush and Telford had rigged are getting clogged with particulate. He squints through dust and falling sparks, trying to get a visual on their ship. Every so often, something collides with the hull and white sparks flare out, cutting through the haze in the air.

                He’s back-to-back with Telford, trying to brace them both as the other man fires into the section of the haze Volker can’t see while reading out the lifesigns report.

                “Five o’clock,” he wheezes, trying to expand his lungs against the sucking of the filter. “Group of five.”

                “Fuck’s sake,” is Telford’s only response, and Volker digs his heels into the soft ground as the recoil from the ancient, unmounted artillery shakes them both. “Where is Rush?”

                “Not on the detector,” Volker says shortly. There’s only one blue dot among the green of the device’s radius, and that’s him, not Rush.

                “Twenty seconds and we’ll have to leave him,” Telford snaps, laying down an indiscriminate spray of bullets from his own rifle. Volker winces as an empty shell grazes past him, close to his left eye. He’s already only seeing by the grace of his aggravated tear ducts, which are clearing the ash and dust away, depositing it in smears and clumps under his eyes.

                “Eight o’clock, nine o’clock,” he says. The second house are starting to flanking them. They need to retreat to the ship. Telford fires again, and they slide a little to the side. Something clunks to the ground next to Volker, seeping smoke. He reaches for it, as the smoke reaches the level of their shoulders and starts to dissipate, quickly. His arm has never been good: he played the piano as a child, not baseball, but panic lends him strength, and he doesn’t need to aim. Another two fly in, one striking Telford in the shoulder, and spill white smoke.

                “Retreat,” the other man hisses. Volker can’t see a thing. His mask is almost impossible to breathe through, but he can’t take it off, not with psychoactive ash and dust choking the air where the _smoke grenades_ aren’t.

                “Rush,” he says, picking up the lifesigns detector. Telford shoves him towards the ship.

                “No choice,” he growls. Volker shakes the detector at him, crawling forward through the dirt.

                “He’s coming,” he clarifies. “Don’t fire.”

                In fact, Rush is moving fast, so fast that he must be sprinting. There is still a lot of gunfire, though, so Volker isn’t really big on standing up and running himself. Telford, however, can move in a sort of combination crouch-crawl-run that must be a military thing, and he’s faster than Volker. So Volker concentrates on speeding up while keeping half an eye on the lifesigns detector. It glows, so it’s really the only thing he can see besides the soles of Telford’s boots.

                Telford’s busy unlocking the ship doors, keying in the passcode while gunfire impacts the hull over his head, when Volker arrives. He turns back towards where they came from, trying to see anything besides the general dark outline of the steep hill that rises several hundred meters away. Rush is close. The ship doors slide open. Telford shoves Volker through bodily, stepping up behind him.

                Volker’s battered eyes see something dark and quick and human-sized, congruent with the second blue dot on the detector. He puts a hand in front of the sliding door, hoping both that Telford doesn’t try to shut it on his hand and that if he does, the goa’uld had programmed some safety feature into their doors analogous to the kind that keeps small children from being crushed by garage doors. A few seconds later, Rush bursts out of the thick smoke, mask gone, face covered in a bandanna, glasses dark with ash. Volker’s hand is removed from the door as Rush impacts him and sends them both crashing to the floor. The doors close.

                Rush rolls off Volker as Volker reaches up to strip off his mask. The air of the ship has never been so sweet, and he lies there and breathes for a second. Telford is still standing, dragging his mask down and letting it dangle, taking heaving breaths.

                Something much heavier than a bullet impacts the hull. Volker manages to get to his feet and stagger to the bridge. They are leaving _right this instant_. The goa’uld controls feel almost natural to him now, and they’re aloft while he’s still blinking his vision back to something approaching normal. He keys in the automatic sequence for breaking orbit: he’s not going to do it manually when his eyes are still streaming.

                Dimly, he hears a yell, and he leaves the bridge to find Telford shouting at Rush. The other man hasn’t even gotten to his feet, just pulled aside the bandanna and moved to sit against a bulkhead.

                “You do _not_ disobey direct orders!” Telford roars. Rush manages to look down his nose despite being seated beneath Telford.

                “That might work in the Air Force, _colonel_ , but I take orders from _Kiva_ , not you, and I took a chance that I deemed necessary.”

                “You fucking goddamn lunatic, you’re not qualified to make decisions in a combat situation! We almost left you! Next time, I will fucking leave you, and you can enjoy your _very short_ employment with the second house.”

                “I made it,” Rush says, getting to his feet and spitting out some revolting, sludgy mixture of saliva and dirt. “Why don’t you take a nap, David? You look worn out.” Volker considers the wisdom of saying something: Telford’s hands are clenching and unclenching at his sides. Rush brushes his wild hair out of his eyes, which are red and streaming like everyone else’s. What the hell has he even done, on his own? Probably been responsible for at least some of the explosions.

                “You almost _didn’t_ ,” Telford says, grabbing Rush by the front of his jacket and trapping him against the bulkhead he was leaning on. Volker opens his mouth and half-raises his hand, trying to formulate some sentence along the lines of, ‘we’re not dead but we’re tired, can this maybe not happen?’

                Instead of punching Rush, which is often his recourse, Telford leans forward and kisses him, his left arm snaking up to hold Rush’s hair and cradle his head, a motion that’s shockingly intimate. Rush doesn’t respond well.

                He stiff-arms Telford away, baring his teeth.

                “ _Don’t_ touch me,” he snarls. Volker’s not sure how to proceed, but now he really wants to leave and knows he really shouldn’t. Telford grabs him by the arms.

                “Come on,” he says, voice inappropriate even by their trio’s standards, where everything is snarled or shouted. Rush flings him off again.

                “Adrenaline _does not_ excuse this. Nor do the drugs in the air. _Do not touch me._ ” Volker walks closer to them.

                “We’ll be breaking orbit soon,” he announces, and Telford’s eyes flick to him. For a moment, they’re hot and angry, leftover from how he was looking at Rush, then they go flat and reasonable.

                “Good,” he says. “Engage FTL as soon as we’re clear.” Volker doesn’t leave the room. Rush adjusts his black leather jacket, and steps out, past them both, saying nothing. Volker doesn’t say anything to Telford, who is standing still and straight and expressionless—well, not really expressionless, just his usual baseline anger.

                He goes back to the bridge to see to FTL. Then, he’ll take a shower.

                Volker’s as clean as he ever gets these days when he heads to the cargo bay to feed and occupy Mendelssohn, and possibly to take a nap away from the other men, where he won’t be woken up whenever their next shouting match is.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which our antiheroes fuck things up

                He’s trained for this: for deep cover, for having an honest surface self that believes in what he’s doing, who feels normal in unwashed leather, with hair growing unkempt. He’s trained to live in small spaces, under pressure, without trust. It’s been long months, and the pressure is starting to build up in unexpected ways. It’s a physical strain that feels less like exhaustion and more like rage every day, deep down in his joints. He yells it out, he locks it down, and they progress.

                Telford scrubs a hand through unwashed, too-long hair and wants one concession to the hell that is his life. A haircut, or a book, or a goddamn kiss. Two of those are completely impossible, but the third isn’t. Shouldn’t be. He turns back to fiddling with the Ancient device: the damn thing works fine for Rush and Dale, but he can barely page through displays, let alone find the settings. If he got a chance, maybe he’d be better, but Dale guards the thing like a dog with a bone. Now, however, he’s busy petting his cat, and teaching himself more goa’uld.

                Telford fiddles with the device for a good hour before deciding he’ll leave it to Rush and Dale. Then, he gets up to take a shower: the goa’uld certainly believed in cleanliness, and standing in the misters, scraping off dirt and sweat and ash, makes him feel more like a human. This is the struggle of the Alliance: they feel so hunted, so threatened, and they’ve taken that and warped it into something offensive, something prized. Their slavers were aesthetes and so they will be ascetics, by choice even when necessity doesn’t demand it.

                Telford has never enjoyed that dichotomy: it’s impractical on both sides. He washes with the rough soap Dale cobbled together from grease and some grasses from four planets ago. It made the galley (such as it is, with its one hotplate) stink, but it works. The smell was hardly worse than Dale’s muttered reminiscing about chemistry lab. Usually Rush didn’t like unnecessary noise, but apparently something the other man said clicked with him. Telford’s pretty sure the run of comments between them had been mostly bad puns, but he wishes things were always that—easy. Not simple, but easy.

                Dale, for all that he appears, that he _is_ , soft, is a survivor. His softness means he can be crushed and come back. His tendency to step back means he doesn’t get hit. Telford has been trained, has made his whole life, into being hard and never retreating. And Rush—Rush was born like that. They’re cracked from being hit.

                Well, Telford isn’t quite sure what he is, but Rush is cracked, splintering. He washes dirt and soap off his back and chest and doesn’t want to be like that, be suicidally rash and terminally furious. The man is one of his own lit fuses: Telford wants to put him out. The need to save Rush from himself, and the look he'd have on his face: they would be worth the burns.

                Their next destination is three days’ travel away, even at FTL, and Rush manages to not talk to him for one and a half of them, by a combination of ignoring him and pretending to be asleep in the cargo bay. It’s fucking insulting: he’ll talk to Dale’s goddamn cat, but not him.

                So when they’re both on the bridge, Rush fiddling with his workaround between the ship and his laptop, Telford glares at him until he knows the man can feel his eyes.

                “What the fuck is your problem?” he asks eventually, when Rush refuses to turn around.

                “Fuck off, David,” he snaps, bent over his wiring. “Go touch yourself in the shower.” Telford deliberately unplugs some of Rush’s wires from the instrument panel and grinds his teeth.

                “You think that’s what I’m angry about?” Rush looks over at what he’s done and bares his teeth.

                “What the _fuck_ ,” he breathes, reaching over to the wires. “I know that’s what you’re angry about. Don’t embarrass yourself any more than you already have.”

                “I could fucking kill you,” Telford growls, and Rush’s snarl lifts into a sharp smile.

                “Don’t I know, David.”

                “You’re not _better_ than the rest of us because you’re not going fucking insane here, you were _already_ fucked up,” Telford hisses, surprised, in a small way, at his own words. Rush rolls his eyes.

                “Save it, David. Go convince _Volker_ to remember human contact if it’s so important to you.” His voice is a harsh mixture of sarcasm and impatience.

                “ _Dale_ ,” corrects Telford, because that name is going to get them all fucking killed, “doesn’t need it. He is the most well-adjusted one here.”

                “Then go pet his fucking cat and leave me alone,” Rush says, sarcasm giving way to tiredness. He reattaches his wires and pulls up the hellish white-on-black command prompt that he prefers to type in. Telford sits back in his chair and does not leave to pet Dale’s cat, but doesn’t provoke Rush any further.

                He’s not even attracted to Rush, for fuck’s sake. He hates the man. He can’t trust him. He just needs him.

                The next planet has a breathable atmosphere, though that’s about all that can be said for it. Dale and Rush pass the Ancient device back and forth incessantly, snapping back in forth with English and goa’uld words, only letting him know what the hell was going on when he asks them explicitly. Both their eyes follow him suspiciously as they all pace around sand dunes.

                This place is hell. Even Kiva doesn’t have the resources to put people here to mine for what’s under this desert. The dunes move fast: he times himself, stands still for ten minutes, and he’s nearly up to his ankles in fine, soft sand. No foundations for shelters. Not a drop of water. The sun is white and not as warm as he likes his suns to be, generally speaking.

                “This trip is worthless,” he says, after watching Rush and Dale walk in circles for a few hours, occasionally picking up sand and dumping it into small containers, all the while bitching about how they aren’t chemists. “Let’s go.” They look at him, evidently surprised.

                “This place has the most traces of naquadria of any we’ve found,” Dale says. Rush just glares suspiciously.

                “No one could mine here, nothing’s alive. The Alliance doesn’t have the equipment to extract it by machine, or the people to do it the way the goa’uld would.”

                “Uh, what way is that?” Dale asks, looking confused, as usual.

                “Working them to death by the thousands,” Telford says grimly. When he was on a gate team, they went on one mission with SG-1, and spent four days in a self-proclaimed god’s mine before Carter managed to blow half the place up _and_ kill the goa’uld nearly single-handedly. “What, not getting a good grip on their culture from your book?” He taps the zat at his side, hating its makers with every touch of the cold metal. “Jackson of all people should paint them as black as they are.”

                “Oh shut the fuck up,” Rush says tiredly, getting to his feet. “I want to leave too.” He shoots Dale a meaningful look, though the other man doesn’t look any less confused. It's ridiculous. “Write it off as too diffused, which it is, practically speaking.”

                “Yeah, whatever,” Dale says, tucking his small containers of reacted sand in the pocket of his shirt. Even in black leather over everything, the man still looks like a college professor. “Let’s go.”

                They don’t eat together, because they aren’t that kind of people, but when they get back to the ship, everyone goes to eat, and Telford ends up with a macaroni and cheese MRE after Rush rips it open, says, “ _fuck_ no,” and sets it to the side. He doesn’t even mind the taste much, because Dale is picking out the questionable meat from his and feeding it to his cat, and it’s a picture.

                He wishes Everett or Chris were here, to laugh at his situation, stuck with two abducted men on a goa’uld ship as his undercover assignment. The thought of them is one of those slightly humanizing things, and he almost smiles.

                Then his vision turns soupy, blurry, and he spits out his mouthful of noodles. Rush tugs the package from his hands, face hard.

                “You fucker,” he says, or tries to. Why had he ever, even for a _second_ , forgotten where he is, and who Rush is, and that he can’t relax? Why—his vision stretches out into black, laced with colored streaks, and the last thing he feels is his whole body seizing and falling sideways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Augh I hate-love Telford with the hate-love fire of a thousand nebulas. He's the most hardass to ever hardass, but even he must get tired sometimes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains some scenes involving medical needles and blood, so take caution if that upsets you.

                Rush’s mind is whirling, sorting through and dismissing possibility after possibility, even as he tapes a makeshift bandage—the kind one gets at a blood bank—over Telford’s tied arm. They have boiling acid on the hot plate, an empty metal drum hastily suspended as a fume hood. Volker isn’t looking happy as he tries to find a vein in his arm. Mendelssohn the _cat_ is anxiously rubbing up against his side. Rush stands up and nudges the cat aside carefully.

                “So much for sterile fields,” he snaps, and kicks Volker in the side. “Hurry the fuck up.” Volker gives him a look.

                “Why? What are we in a hurry about?” He winces as he slides the needle into his arm. “Oh, God…” His face turns pale and greenish-grey. “There’s a reason I didn’t go to medical school.” That’s the only thing he gets out, and Rush lurches forward, drawing the plunger out with a speed that must be medically unadvised.

                “Lie down,” he says, detaching the syringe. Volker fumbles for a square of gauze and folds his arm up, compressing the vessels in his elbow.

                “I’m going to have vein collapse,” he says vaguely, lying down.

                “Your hypertension will no doubt compensate.” Rush is not in the mood to humor him at the moment. He labels the plastic syringe of Telford’s blood with a T, Volker’s with a V. “Where the fuck is that substrate?” Instead of waiting for an answer, he leans forward, sticking his hands in Volker’s jacket pockets until his fingers close around a sample jar, labeled PX-554-67. He shakes some into the vials of blood, caps them, and shakes them vigorously, wishing for a laboratory that’s not outdated, foreign, and also the dirty cargo hold of a spaceship.

                The vials wait on the floor while he takes a sample from his own arm, dark blood slowly filling the syringe. Then he adds an R, the soil sample, and shakes repeatedly.

                This is good enough to rule out Telford and Volker, unless his potentially brainwashed subconscious wants to find them innocent even if it may know they’re guilty. The other assay is going to be by Volker, in an attempt to make it as impartial as possible. Unless his potentially brainwashed subconscious has screwed up the protocol, unless _Volker_ has. There is never going to be real partiality. They can’t test their completely fucked system from within it. Not with enough rigor to lay his fears to rest. It’s like learning about Gödel’s Theorem, except instead of awed wonder, he’s reacting with justified paranoia. It must be taking years off his life expectancy—well, such as it is out here.

                He unscrews the cap of the vial of Telford’s blood, takes a piece of paper, and filters it into a small jar. Sand catches on the paper; blood and solvated naquadria and samarium chlorides run into the jar.

                He’s not a biochemist, and he can’t begin to fathom the structure of the thing that might be in Telford’s blood. But between himself and Volker and a few violently acquired test samples, their assay will work. It’s not an extraction, it’s a flame test, and they know all about spectra these days. All he sees in his dreams are lines and static, resolving into the compositions of every planet in range. This is just one signal to look for.

                He takes the boiling acid off the hotplate, turning his face to the side, and adds some to the jar, making the contents crackle. When the reaction stops, and all that’s left is a black charred sludge, he lights it. The brief blue-yellow flame of his lighter wavers almost invisibly in the brightness of the cargo hold, carrying the slightest hint of accelerant, of things made to burn. The fire turns dark, low, and smoky as soon as he touches it to the messy products in the jar. They char whitish grey as he drops his lighter in favor of the tricorder, holding it close to the gaseous emissions that distort the air.

                Carbon, hydrogen, a hell of a lot of sulfur, trace samarium, naquadah. He passes the results to Volker without comment, dispassionately preparing the next mixture. Volker lets out a shaky sigh and puts a nervous hand on his cat’s back.

                Volker’s test comes back the same, and so does his. Rush switches off the hotplate and turns to blink down at Telford, still passed out and chained to the wall. He’s maybe thirty percent more likely to trust the man, now. In some ways, with some situations.

                “That’s negative confirmation,” Volker says briskly. “I’ll do the other.” He glances at his samples. “Actually, I think I’ll go do it in the showers, in case of overflow.” He disappears, shuffling his way around the room first, collecting some of his things. Rush doesn’t really care. Volker doesn’t need his permission, or even his being informed.

                Less than a full minute after the other man leaves, Telford stirs. He doesn’t move besides that first twitch, but he’s awake, and trying to assess the situation. Rush can practically see his eyelids trembling with the desire to open. He repeatedly turns over the tricorder in his hands, tries to think his way out of this paradox, and wishes he could bend chemistry and psychology to the inexorable clarifying drive of math.

                He steps closer to Telford, and drops to one knee, leaning some of his weight on the other man’s chest. Telford’s eyes snap open, angry, a touch afraid. Rush bares his teeth.

                “Congratulations,” he says snidely. “We don’t have to kill you.” He sits back on his heels. “ _I_ don’t have to.” He’d honestly prefer to keep Volker out of this. Telford’s eyes flare with rage.

                “Release me,” he says, voice clipped, as ever. “What the hell are you talking about? This is beyond the level of power struggle even Kiva will tolerate—“ For once, Telford’s truly out of his depth, and it’s a wonderful feeling to watch him, Rush’s plan unfolding without the anxiety of rebuttal, retribution, or failure.

                “You won’t tell this to Kiva, oh no,” Rush breathes. “I don’t think she’d be happy with any of us, so if you value your own life, you won’t tell her. If you also value your own life, _Colonel_ , then a certain protocol drawn up by Dr. Volker and myself will be reaching the USAF. Because,” _this_ is the panic-inducing bit, the unprovable by _any_ means bit, “you may not be a chemical traitor. But there’s no test for real traitors. So that one will have to do.”

                Telford doesn’t say anything for a long few moments, then his mouth twists up into some kind of smile. Rush bears down harder on his chest, not letting him look away.

                “A test,” he says. “Of course you two would come up with one.”

                “No doubt Stargate Command’s personnel can improve upon it.” Rush stands up, and Telford takes a deep breath.

                “It’s sometimes hard for me to get in contact with them,” he says, in his brusque, military voice. “But at the earliest opportunity.” Rush presses his lips together.

                “Right,” he says. There is a wavelength bouncing between obsolete and functioning goa’uld stations, a burst of noise, something that looks like a random discharge of electricity from a short circuit. But he’s a cryptographer, and lock-breakers can build the best locks. And Volker specializes in deep space radiation. The warning to expect a message from Telford is encrypted to Colonel Carter’s public key, and the signal will reach Earth in a few days. She will handle the rest of it, whatever that may become.

                “Devious of you to drug me.” Telford’s voice cuts through his thoughts. Rush looks down at him.

                “Did you expect anything less?”

                “I never expect anything but the best from you,” Telford breathes, eyes burning. Oh no, Rush thinks, not this again. Not when he’s hot and ecstatic from triumph, from a considerable clarifying of their situation. Not with the sucking knowledge that he can’t change the way he thinks about this existence crawling up his limbs. He’s exhausted and wired.

                “You’ve just been drugged,” Rush says dryly. “I’m almost impressed.” His tone is carefully mocking, a shredding blend of insincerity and truth.

                “Never stopped either of us,” Telford says intently. “Fuck, I could really impress you, Nick.” The raw heat in his voice slips under Rush’s skin unexpectedly, and he swallows. This is not ideal. Telford half-smiles, voice turning rougher. “Shit, you’ve already got me tied down.”

                _That_ won’t do. Rush drops to his knees next to Telford, dragging the cuff keys from his pocket, and undoes the manacles. Then he wraps his hands around the man’s wrists and slams his hands down over his head. He slides over Telford until he’s straddling him.

                “The only thing I need to hold you down is _me_ ,” he hisses savagely. Telford just moves his face up and kisses him, harsh with tongue and teeth. His tongue slides into Rush’s mouth, eager, and his teeth pull at Rush’s lips. Rush responds by tightening his hold on Telford’s wrists, enough to really hurt, and pulls his mouth away. Telford sucks in a heaving breath, eyes frantic. Rush bends his head back down and _bites_ Telford’s mouth, drawing his lip into his own mouth and sucking hard on it. Every time Telford tries to kiss him back, Rush jerks away.

                For a reasonable interval that’s all that happens, a fast-paced touch and return pattern, until Telford finally gives in and lies still, lets Rush explore his mouth, bite his jaw, and suck on his neck. He twitches and gasps from time to time, his muscles shifting under Rush’s hands as he flexes his arms and fidgets. Rush keeps his body over Telford’s, pushing his hips forward every so often and feeling himself becoming aroused. This is not ideal, however good it feels to have Telford doing what he wants, however good it feels to have a warm body next to his.

                “God, yes,” Telford gasps, as Rush licks his way from ear to jaw. Telford tastes faintly like salt. He shouldn’t like it, the taste of that desert, but he does. “Let me—“ He breaks Rush’s grip on his hands, suddenly, grabs Rush by the hips, and flips him over, one hand coming to his shoulder as they settle.

                The disorientation passes fast—Telford is kissing him now, having turned the tables, and sort of rubbing off on his leg. He likes this a surprising amount, being held down while Telford kisses him and kisses him, biting over every exposed piece of his neck. Some of his tension is melting away while some of it is mounting quickly, and he can’t keep up while being sensationally overwhelmed.

                He realizes he’s gasping and not doing much besides lying here—it’s overwhelming, he can’t understand why Telford was so restless and insistent. He forces a deep, slow breath, and moves his hands to Telford’s waist. The buckle of his belt is easy. Telford groans and shoves his hips forward, grinding his cock into Rush’s thigh.

                “Fuck,” he manages, and Rush looks at his eyes to see them shocked.

                “I thought you expected only the best,” Rush says slowly, working the zipper down. Telford stares at him for a second, then he’s undoing Rush’s pants in turn, breathing fast and hard, kissing him again.

                Rush moves them so they’re both lying on their sides: the deck plating is pressing uncomfortably against his spine, and he doubts he’s going to be keeping very still in the next few minutes. Telford presses up close to him, fingers scraping over his stomach, and grabs his cock. Rush hisses through his teeth, hips shuddering reflexively, as Telford’s rough hand slides up his length. Telford aligns their hips and their cocks rub against one another.

                Then it’s just a matter of friction and pace, which is frustratingly hard to find with one party still uncoordinated from anesthetic and both of them still mostly dressed and lying on a metal floor. Telford keeps trying to grab onto his hair, and Rush uses the hand that’s not occupied with holding very tightly to Telford’s hip to move it away.

                “Take a fucking hint!” he snaps, after the third time, unacceptably distracted from his arousal.

                “Learn to compromise, _Nick_ ,” Telford snarls back, gripping his cock just the slightest bit tighter.

                “Concentrate,” he replies, “aren’t you a _colonel_? That implies some mental acuity.” God, this feels incredible, the too-dry friction that stings and soothes all at once. He adjusts his position and shoves Telford onto his back. He doesn’t like that, tries to push back, but he’s still weak from the drugs.

                “Fuck you,” Telford snaps, and Rush laughs.

                “I _am_ ,” he can’t resist saying, and this next kiss is full of loathing and rage, his paranoid mistrust and Telford’s intense desire mingling as they fight with tongues and lips. He presses a hand down roughly over their cocks, against Telford’s stomach, and feels Telford come. He bites down on Rush’s lip, hard enough to draw blood, as he growls through it. Rush hangs on the edge, gritting his teeth, and watches Telford’s eyes go hazy and drift closed in bliss, and somehow, that finishes him.

                There’s semen all over his hand, but all the rest of it is on Telford’s stomach and shirt. Rush stands up carefully, doing up his pants, evening his breathing. Then he pauses, before he heads for the showers.

                “This changes nothing,” he says insistently. Telford opens his eyes and looks up at him, a smile at the edges of his mouth.

                “Oh really?” he says, tilting his head back, as if he’s comfortable. “If you say so, Nick.”

                Rush stalks off to the showers, passing Volker coming back. Fucking great.

                _He won._ He holds onto that thought, the exhausted calm after sex threatening to overwhelm him. There is more to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long...that sex scene was incredibly hard to write and I almost took it out, but I think it turned out okay. Hope you liked my little fic-of-a-fic, and I encourage you to check out CWR's story Ad Noctum, which is linked at the start of the story.


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